


truly gifted. what a shame.

by Michinokao



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Pre-Canon, References to Depression, Sherlock Holmes Needs a Hug, Suicide Attempt, Underage Smoking, Unreliable Narrator, or facets of it anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29168472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michinokao/pseuds/Michinokao
Summary: Somewhere along the line, he becomes a disappointment. Does it begin with the cigarettes or with his first grade below a C? And has his descent ever stopped or is he still continuously spiralling downwards?
Kudos: 9





	truly gifted. what a shame.

There are approximately twenty answers to the question “ _What happened to our bright son?”_ and none of them would appropriately satisfy the need to know of those who ask. It’s a formality more than anything else, Sherlock notes, and he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t try it. Rather, he storms off, slams the door shut, locks the key and sinks down in a pile of useless human flesh.

Sure, his body may be a temple but there are no worshippers. A religion founded for someone who is unable to brush his teeth because he procrastinates on doing the task until night fades into day? A religion dedicated to a supposed genius who fails his simplest classes? Ridiculous.

He wishes he could order his body to function when his mind won’t – and to make it do all of those mundane things one has to do to just be able to live – but no matter how many cigarettes he smokes, no matter how many hours he sleeps, the only thing that changes is his ability to care. (He cares less, not more. Not the intended effect. Research. Chemistry. He likes chemistry... he likes it. He likes it. Why doesn’t he ever touch a book on the subject? Why can’t he even enjoy something he finds intriguing? Has he always been this broken or is that new? He can’t remember.)

Sherlock is his mind and his body is in the way. It betrays him at every turn. It makes his mind blank and dreary and he can hardly think sometimes, stumbling over easy words, forgetting whole expressions, puts the first letter of the second word he wants to say in front of the first and vice versa. People laugh when they hear it.  
He wants to burn his tongue to a crisp and rip out his voice box.

Mycroft, the bastard – the enemy, his worst one yet – has the audacity to tut and shake his head with barely contained laughter at his report card. (Of which form? Isn’t it always the same? What time is it? He’s so very bad at managing time.) Sherlock shouldn’t care (according to the amount of nicotine in his veins, he’s long past the point of giving a damn) but, of course, he does. Because all he ever does is care... so. much. about everything.

(About being an utter disappointment. About being a creature unworthy of gentle hands on his skin; he’s good enough to be taken like a cheap blow-up doll, at least. About perceiving everything and nothing at the same time.)

hes a wreck and with each day, he steadily drifts seemingly even further. lets his mind wander. where are the questions now? why is nobody asking whether he’s alright or not? and how old even is he at this point because he sometimes can’t remember because years pass by in a flurry of nonsensical experiments concerning ashes and ashes and ashes upon ashes of cigarettes he maybe buys or steals – who knows – and where are his parents now to ask what’s happening with their once so bright son? and where’s Mycroft, where is his supposed-to-be-there-for-him big brother who’s never been there for him when he needed him? and where’s victor, the only person to ever touch him – to ever come close to closing an open wound before he realized how poisonous sherlock is?

and where’s all his time?

but all of a sudden with cocaine yes with cocaine its so incredibly easy to concentrate suddenly hes a genius again and not the black sheep in the family everyone has always said he was and suddenly theres mycroft and his parents and they want him back because hes apparently better company when hes drugged out of his mind and mycroft pretends he doesnt see it because seeing it would mean he had to confront it and goddamn if theres one thing his family is good at its avoiding any form of confrontation just like his parents because theyd much rather have a son whos a coked up workaholic than one whose brain has never functioned quite right and sherlock is all of a sudden so much more like himself like a better version of himself and he finds with this powder hes a god and it makes sense to worship him mycroft is so good at ignoring each and every sign he should win a prize for that honestly until.

Until he can’t ignore it anymore because ignoring it would mean losing Sherlock.

The funny thing is: The day his brother finds Sherlock’s unconscious form in the bathtub, it’s Sherlock’s birthday. No-one came. Not his family, not his... well. He doesn’t have friends.

He only has Mycroft, who hates legwork and still drags him out of the water.

 _“What happened to my brother?”_ he asks when Sherlock wakes up and, well, it’s funny how eerily similar that question is to the one that sort of began it all (but didn’t, not really, because Sherlock’s always been...)

“Nothing”

Sherlock's always been a bit messed up.


End file.
